5 Lifestyle Choices That Could Be Damaging The Health Of Your Vagina

Vaginas are pretty self-sufficient and generally need next to little maintenance. Now, while vaginas are resilient enough to fend off most minor infections and imbalances, there are certain practices and foods that can ultimately lead to a rather unhappy nether-region. Here’s a list of the most popular culprits:

 

 

Sexy Panties

Now, while lacey thongs and sheer boy shorts are not necessary to feel sexy, they sure do help. However, it may be best to save these synthetic undergarments strictly for bedroom play and to stick to more conventional cotton drawers for your everyday activity. The synthetic material of which most sexy underwear is made from traps in moisture and leaves a woman more prone to vaginal infections.
“We should all be wearing cotton underwear,” Dr. Shieva Ghofrany, an OB/GYN at Stamford Hospital in Connecticut told The Huffington Post. It’s not just the material of sexy underwear that has doctors wary of possible infection in patients; their shape also exposes the vagina to much more friction than traditional underwear, which can cause embarrassing skin tags on the vagina and anus. “I sometimes will be mid-pap and ask a patient, 'So you wear thongs a lot?' … It's because of the skin tags, small 'piles' of soft tissue that occur from the skin being constantly rubbed in the same spot,” Ghofrany added.

Hair Removal

Pubic hair removal is extremely popular among women recently, but the practice is linked to a long list of unforeseen possible complications. First off, pubic hair is there for a reason. Other than working as a personal amplifier for sexual attraction, it also protects the vagina from friction and infection. Therefore a bald vagina is a vulnerable vagina. The most common infection that gynecologists are observing in hairless vaginas are Streptococcus and MRSA.
The hair also acts as a woman’s final defense against some rather nasty STDs. “Some clinicians are finding that freshly shaved pubic areas and genitals are also more vulnerable to herpes infections due to the microscopic wounds being exposed to virus carried by mouth or genitals," Dr. Emily Gibson wrote in her recent piece against the popular “fashion” trend.

Douching

The word douche can have many meanings. For the French, it means “to bathe,” for the American millennials, it’s a less desirable man, and for the pharmacists, it’s a method of shooting liquids into one’s vagina. The practice is surprisingly popular in the United States, with around 20 to 40 percent of the U.S. female population admitting to indulging in the archaic practice.
Douching can mess up the natural balance of good bacteria in the vagina, and doing it regularly can leave a woman open to a number of ailments, including: yeast infections, STDs, and even infertility. Also, since the vagina is already resilient and in need of little maintenance, and incredibly good at self-cleaning, it makes douching pretty obsolete. But if you don’t believe me, ask a doctor. “There is no good reason to douche and many good reasons not to," Johns Hopkins gynecologist Jean Anderson told Psychology Today. "Douching should be discouraged."

Strong Smelling Foods And Too Much Sugar

Apart from odd smells resulting from STD infections, a change in your vagina’s odor is not exactly “bad” for you, but still it’s a side effect most would try and avoid. Strong-smelling foods, such as garlic, asparagus, and curry, are known to change your overall body odor, your vagina being no exception. "It has not been extensively studied, it’s been inferred from other research. … If you ingest foods with very strong odors like asparagus or garlic or curry, it’s possible that that can translate to a smell in your vaginal area,” Dr. Djinge Lindsay, a D.C.-based family physician told BuzzFeed.
As sad as this may be, too much sugar is also found to be bad for your vaginal health and can make you more prone to yeast infections. “The idea is that the yeast will eat off of the sugar and that’s how they’ll grow,” Lindsay explained to BuzzFeed. “I commonly see infections in my diabetic patients that don’t have good control over their blood sugar.”

Scleroderma Patient Has Pig Intestine Mesh Inserted Into Vagina

A condition known as scleroderma caused a Czech woman’s vagina to become so narrow that doctors were not even able to complete a gynecological exam. In a first-of-its-kind procedure, the woman’s vagina was surgically widened using a mesh made from pig intestines. Although still in the recovery stages, doctors believe that the operation will allow the woman to enjoy something that’s been robbed of her for years: a full and active sex life.

Mesh augmented vaginal reconstruction is an operation typically used on women who experience vaginal relapse due to childbirth or a hysterectomy. The operation usually involves using synthetic mesh, but this time a team of doctors at the University Hospital in the town of Plzen, Czech Republic, chose to take a new approach to the fairly common procedure and use organic pig intestines to construct their vaginal mesh.

Pig intestines were chosen for their genetic similarity to human DNA, the Daily Mail reported. The team of doctors was inspired to use pig material after observing the success of past operations that re-grew human leg muscles using implants made of pig bladder tissue.  

Scleroderma is an umbrella term for a group of conditions which involve the hardening and tightening of the skin and connective tissues. In most cases it only affects the skin, but in some individuals, such as the Czech patient, the condition can affect internal organs. The patient was given a variety of medications to help treat her condition, but none provided her with relief.

To repair the hardened vaginal tissue, the doctors cut inside of the patient and inserted the mesh made from the pig intestines into her vaginal wall. The material was about 1 millimeter thick, and over time the pig intestines will be absorbed into the woman’s body, replaced by new human tissue.

The entire surgery lasted about an hour, and the patient was allowed to return home after a five-day stay in the hospital.

“The patient is very happy now. The gynecological examinations are not painful anymore,” Dr. Vladimir Kalis, head doctor of the gynecological-obstetrical clinic at the hospital, told CEN, the Daily Mail reported.

The patient is still recovering and at the moment has been advised to not engage in sexual activity, but Kalis expects her to make a full recovery in about two years.

The surgical team believes they are the first to have conducted a mesh augmented vaginal reconstruction using pig intestines and are planning on publishing the results of their surgery in an effort to bring awareness to the condition.